System and method for providing personalized weather reports and the like

ABSTRACT

A system and method for generating weather reports and the like which are precisely computed automatically for a particular individual user&#39;s geographic location and which are provided automatically to the individual user. A user establishes an individualized user profile in which the user defines a particular location of interest, a contact address, and optionally, a personalized activity weather condition profile. A detailed and accurate weather forecasting model is run to provide high geographic and temporal resolution forecast data. The high resolution forecast data is compared to the individual user profile and a personalized weather report for the particular location, times, and conditions of interest are provided automatically to the individual, e.g., via e-mail and/or at a personalized internet web page. A detailed weather forecast report may be provided in an easily readable tabular form, with notable weather conditions, e.g., daily high and low temperatures, highlighted.

This application is a continuation of U.S. application Ser. No.09/686,029, filed Oct. 11, 2000, U.S. Pat. No. 6,823,263 which is acontinuation-in-part of U.S. application Ser. No. 09/547,195, filed Apr.12, 2000, U.S. Pat. No. 6,498,987.

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The present invention pertains generally to systems and methods forproducing weather reports including current weather conditions andweather forecasts, and, more particularly, to systems and methods forproviding such weather reports and forecasts to individuals andbusinesses, e.g., over computer networks such as the internet.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

Most of the current weather and weather forecast information used byindividuals and businesses is obtained by them from weather reportsprovided by local television and radio stations. Such reports aretypically prepared by meteorologists at a television or radio stationserving a particular geographical area, e.g., a large city andsurrounding environs. The reports are based on current weatherinformation available to the meteorologist which may be provided byvarious local (e.g., local radar) and national (e.g., NEXRAD radar andweather satellite) weather information sources. A meteorologist may alsoemploy computer implemented weather forecasting models in preparing aweather forecast report. A meteorologist may prepare and/or updateseveral such reports throughout the day, and such reports may beprovided as part of periodic radio and/or television broadcasts. Suchweather reports and forecasts may also be provided in printed form,e.g., in a daily newspaper. A person who is interested in the current orforecast weather conditions for a geographic location accesses such aweather report by tuning in to the television or radio broadcast of thereport at the designated time, reading the paper, etc. If severe weatherthreatens a particular area, an emergency radio or television broadcastmay be made to provide such information to the public immediately, and,if necessary, continuously. For example, a television station mayprovide a graphic indication of the general location (e.g., county) andnature of severe weather, (e.g., tornado, and thunderstorm warnings,etc.) as part of its television broadcast, throughout the period duringwhich severe weather threatens an area.

A severe limitation of such conventional weather reports and forecastsis that they are generalized over a large geographic area and,typically, an extensive period of time. For example, a typicalconventional weather forecast will provide predicted high and lowtemperatures, sky conditions, precipitation, etc., for the day, or forseveral days, for a particular geographical area, e.g., the city wherethe television or radio station is located and the surrounding area.However, the actual current and forecast weather conditions for thedowntown area of a city, the suburbs, and surrounding rural areas will,of course, be different. For example, different areas in and around thecity will achieve different high and low temperatures at different timesduring the day, and precipitation will reach different points in atelevision station's viewing area at different times during the day andat different levels of intensity. A meteorologist's forecast mayindicate that some areas within a television station's viewing area willreceive significant precipitation during the day, while other areas willreceive none (e.g., a forecast of “widely scattered showers”). Thus,generalized weather conditions and forecasts for a particular area,e.g., a television or radio station viewing and/or listening area, maybe of limited use to any particular individual, especially individualsliving or working outside of a central city area, in that such generalinformation will not provide an accurate indication of, e.g., high andlow temperatures and sky conditions at any particular time during theday at that individual's home or place of work, and when, how much, oreven if precipitation will arrive at that individual's home or place ofwork. Businesses, in particular, may require more specific and detailedweather forecast information. For example, the forecast weatherconditions at a particular construction location may be used to decidewhich activities will take place at that site on a particular day.Generalized weather forecasts for a relatively large area are of limitedusefulness to such businesses.

The National Weather Service issues weather forecasts. However, suchforecasts are “zone” forecasts generalized over National Weather Service“zones” which may cover a hundred miles square or more. Thus, suchNational Weather Service forecasts also do not provide an individual orbusiness with a detailed or accurate weather forecast for a particularlocalized area of interest.

Advances in computer connectivity technology have allowed television andradio station meteorologists to provide access to their latest weathercondition and forecast reports via computer over the internet at anytime desired. Thus, an individual need not try to catch the localtelevision or radio broadcast of a weather report to get the latestweather information. An individual may be able to access weather reportsand other outdoor information for both local and remote geographiclocations via computer over the internet. For example, U.S. Pat. No.5,654,886 to Zereski, Jr., et al. describes a multimedia outdoor systemwhich automatically compiles outdoor information, including currentweather conditions, traffic, meteorologist-provided weather forecasts,etc., from a variety of sources and locations, and generates multimediapresentations based on the information for local areas throughout thecountry. In such a system, weather forecasts, including oral forecastpresentations, are manually generated by meteorologists and entered intothe system periodically. The multimedia reports generated by the systemfrom such forecasts are stored in a presentation database. An interesteduser may access the weather report for a local area, such as a city, byaccessing the presentation database via computer over, e.g., theinternet. However, the individual weather reports and forecasts uponwhich the multimedia weather reports provided over the internet arebased are conventional weather reports and forecasts which aregeneralized over a wide geographic area and period in time, as describedabove. Thus, such a system does not provide an individual with adetailed or accurate weather report and forecast for that individual'sparticular residence or place of work.

U.S. Pat. No. 6,018,699, to Baron, Sr., et al. describes a weather alertmanager which receives meteorological data, e.g., NEXRAD data, whichincludes weather information defining storms within a relevantgeographic area. The current position and predicted path of a storm isdetermined from the data and combined with a geographical grid toproduce a storm profile indicating storm severity and if a storm is inor is likely to enter any geographical grid area. The storm profile maybe distributed to remote units located within a particular grid area toprovide storm warnings to individuals in such areas. For example, theremote unit may be a cellular phone or pager which is associated with aparticular area, and which receives the storm profile to provide theappropriate warning when a storm is in or approaching that area. Such asystem, however, only provides limited severe weather warninginformation for existing storm cells and does not provide an individualwith a detailed and accurate weather report and forecast of generalweather conditions, e.g., high and low temperatures, precipitation, windspeed and direction, etc., for that individual's particular residence orplace of work.

U.S. Pat. No. 6,023,223 to Baxter, Jr. describes a plurality of remotelylocated environmental sensors, e.g., temperature sensors, which arelinked to a database server having data tables for holding theenvironmental data. A user can access the database, via the internet, tosearch for environmental information of interest. The user may alsostore a profile on the server which contains predefined environmentalthreshold triggers. When an environmental condition meets the thresholdtrigger, the user may be notified, e.g., via e-mail, facsimile message,pager, or telephone. Such a system, however, only provides a warning toa user if current conditions satisfy preselected thresholds and onlyprovides limited environmental information for an individual'sparticular area of interest if an environmental sensor happens to bepositioned in that area.

Complex weather forecasting models exist which can be used to generateaccurate and detailed weather forecast data for narrowly definedgeographic locations and periods in time. An example of such a weatherforecasting model is the ADONIS model, available from Weather Central,Inc., of Madison, Wis. This model is based on a three-dimensionalweather forecasting model of the atmosphere developed originally byColorado State University and the University of Wisconsin. This model isa non-hydrostatic model, which therefore takes into account changingatmospheric moisture conditions, as well as topography, snow cover,etc., in generating weather forecast data. The model is, therefore,highly accurate. Some weather forecasting models, including ADONIS, arecapable of producing weather forecast data with both high geographic andtemporal resolution. For example, the ADONIS model may be run to providedetailed forecast data (e.g., temperature, sky conditions, wind,precipitation, etc., for, e.g., up to 25 different vertical levels ofthe atmosphere) for geographical areas only a few miles across and inhalf hour increments extending several days into the future. Byextrapolation between such closely spaced points for which weatherforecast model data is generated, accurate forecast weather conditionsfor any modeled time at any point in a modeled geographic area may beobtained. A practical limitation of such highly accurate and complexmodels is, however, the computation resources and time required toobtain such high resolution forecast data. As a practical matter, usingcurrent technology, the computation resources and time required to runsuch a model to generate high resolution forecast data for the entirecountry would be prohibitive for any single local television or radiostation weather operation. In addition, such highly detailed models mustbe capable of producing thousands of near-real-time individualizedweather forecasts in order to be useful to individuals and businessesrequiring precise pinpoint forecasts.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The present invention provides a system and method for generatingweather reports and the like which are precisely computed automaticallyfor a particular individual or business user's geographic location,e.g., home or work, and which are provided automatically directly to theindividual user or business. The present invention may also providepersonalized advanced notice to a user when forecast weather conditionsmeet a user definable weather condition profile for outdoor activitiesof interest to the user. In accordance with the present invention, auser establishes an individualized user profile in which the userdefines a particular location of interest (e.g., home or work), acontact address (e.g., e-mail address or pager number) to which thepersonalized weather report is to be delivered, and, optionally, apersonalized activity weather condition profile, establishing apreferred weather condition profile for activities of interest.Alternatively, or additionally, an address at which the personalizedweather report is to be made available, e.g., a personalized internetweb page address, may be automatically generated and provided to theuser. A detailed and accurate weather forecasting model is run toprovide high geographical and temporal resolution forecast data. Thishigh resolution forecast data is compared to the individual user profileand a personalized weather report for the particular location, times,and conditions of interest to the individual is provided directly to theindividual or business, e.g., via e-mail and/or at the user'spersonalized internet web page address. Individual personalized weatherreports generated from pre-established user profile information andmodel forecast data may be generated and delivered and/or updatedautomatically, without human intervention, e.g., each time the forecastmodel is run.

An exemplary system for providing personalized weather reports inaccordance with the present invention includes a main computer system,which may be implemented, for example, as part of a television or radiostation news and weather reporting operation. The main computer systemincludes weather forecast modeling software for calculating andpresenting high geographical and temporal resolution forecast data for awide, but limited, geographical area, e.g., the geographical areaserviced by a television or radio station or newspaper. The weatherforecasting model preferably accepts and stores as inputs theretoinitialized weather model data, e.g., initial atmospheric conditioninformation, which is generated and provided from a central location tothe local main computer system (e.g., by satellite or internet datadelivery). Since weather conditions modeled in the main computer are fora geographic area which is limited to, e.g., the television station'sviewing area, and the number of personalized weather reports generatedand delivered by the main computer system is limited by the number ofcustomers in a limited geographic area, computation resources andrun-times for even very high resolution modeling and report generationare reasonable.

Alternatively, a single computer system may be employed to model weatherconditions and generate personalized weather reports for a widergeographic area, such as the entire country. Such a system may beemployed for less high resolution modeling. With advances in computertechnology, it may be possible to employ a single computer system forhigh resolution modeling of weather conditions across the entirecountry. As a preferred alternative, a conventional computer system maybe employed to run a high resolution weather forecast model for alimited geographic area, e.g., a local television station's viewingarea, and a less high resolution weather forecast model for areasoutside of the limited geographic area. Such a system minimizes computerresource requirements while allowing the vast majority of users in atelevision/radio market to receive high resolution personalized weatherreports for their homes and businesses within the local area, and thosewith an interest in weather forecasts for other locations, such as, forexample, a vacation home located outside of the local area, also toobtain personalized weather reports for such locations. In any case, theforecast model(s) may be run periodically, e.g., twice a day, or eachtime initialization conditions are received by the computer systemrunning the model(s), to provide high resolution forecast data andpersonalized reports for the geographical area of interest.

The main computer system includes a user profile generator. The userprofile generator provides various user profile set-up menu userinterfaces which allow a user to establish a user profile. These menusmay be accessed by a user by use of, for example, a personal computerconnected to the main system computer over a network such as theinternet. Using such menus, a user establishes a personal user profilewhich includes a particular location of interest, e.g., home, vacationhome, or work, for which the user would like a detailed weather report,a contact address, e.g., e-mail address or pager number, to which thepersonalized weather report is to be delivered and, optionally, apersonalized activity weather condition profile, establishing apreferred weather condition profile for activities of interest to theuser. Additionally, the computer system may automatically generate apersonalized internet web page address at which the user's personalizedweather report will be accessible. The personalized internet web pageaddress may be provided to the user automatically by the computersystem, for example, in an e-mail message which is automaticallydelivered by the computer system to the user's contact address. All suchuser profile information is stored in a user profile database.

Each time the high resolution forecast model is run, the resultingforecast data is compared to the user profiles saved in the user profiledatabase and personalized weather reports are generated automatically bya personalized report generator implemented in the main computer system.Automated detailed personalized report generation is possible using ahigh resolution weather forecast model, such as ADONIS, which providesas an output exact and discreet weather condition readings for specificpoints in time at pinpoint lat./lon. locations covering an entiregeographic area of interest. Such high resolution weather forecast modeldata may, optionally, be constrained to within certain limits, e.g.,using constraints established by a meteorologist, before the model datais used to generate a personalized weather report. The user locationprovided in the user profile may be converted to a lat./Ion. coordinateand used to automatically pull detailed forecast weather conditions forthat location from the forecast model data to generate the personalizedweather report. If both high resolution (for a limited local geographicarea) and lower resolution (for a wider geographic area) weatherforecast models are run, the user location is used to determine whichresolution of modeled weather forecast data will be employed.

Personalized weather reports are delivered to a user at the contactaddress indicated in the user profile, and include detailed informationon forecast weather conditions, e.g., high and low temperatures, thetimes those temperatures will be reached, sky conditions, windconditions, whether or not there will be frost or dew, etc., for thespecific user location identified by the user in the user profile. Suchdetailed personalized weather reports may be delivered directly to auser's contact address, e.g., in the form of an e-mail or phone message.Alternatively, or additionally, the detailed personalized weather reportmay be provided as an internet web page accessible at the user'spersonalized internet web page address. Preferably, a summarypersonalized weather report may be provided, e.g., as an e-mail message,to the user's contact address, with a link to the user's personalizedinternet web page provided therein. Thus, the user may be periodicallyreminded that an updated detailed personalized weather forecast isavailable at the user's personalized internet web page address.Preferably, detailed weather forecast conditions for periods (e.g.,hours) throughout a day are provided in an easily readable form, such asa tabular form, wherein, for example, high and low temperatures, periodsof precipitation, etc., are highlighted. The forecast data is alsocompared to the personalized activity weather condition profileestablished by the user, and a notice is provided to the user indicatingif and when such favorable weather conditions for the activity willoccur at a selected activity location (which may be different from theuser's home or work location).

Further objects, features, and advantages of the invention will beapparent from the following detailed description taken in conjunctionwith the accompanying drawings.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

In the drawings:

FIG. 1 is a schematic block diagram of an exemplary system for providingpersonalized weather reports in accordance with the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a schematic flowchart diagram of an exemplary method forproviding personalized weather reports in accordance with the presentinvention.

FIG. 3 is an exemplary user profile set-up menu user interface for usein a system and method for providing personalized weather reports inaccordance with the present invention.

FIG. 4 is an exemplary outdoor activity weather condition profile set-upmenu user interface for use in a system and method for providingpersonalized weather reports in accordance with the present invention.

FIG. 5 is an exemplary personalized e-mail weather report provided inaccordance with the present invention.

FIG. 6 is an exemplary personalized internet web page providing adetailed personalized weather report in accordance with the presentinvention.

FIG. 7 is an exemplary personalized summary e-mail weather reportprovided in accordance with the present invention, including a link to apersonalized internet web page wherein a more detailed personalizedweather report is provided.

FIG. 8 is an exemplary personalized e-mail message indicating if andwhen weather conditions established in a personalized activity weathercondition profile in accordance with the present invention will besatisfied.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

A schematic block diagram of an exemplary system 10 for providingpersonalized weather reports in accordance with the present invention isillustrated in, and will be described in detail with reference to,FIG. 1. In accordance with the present invention, personalized weatherreports, and the like, are generated by a main-computer system 12 whichcommunicates, e.g., via a network connection 14 with a user's computer16. The main computer system 12 may be implemented as one or moreconventional computers located at a television or radio station ornewspaper which services a particular geographic area of the country.The user's computer 16 may be implemented in a conventional manner as apersonal or handheld wireless computer, Web TV terminal, digitaltelevision system, or the like. Two-way communications between the maincomputer system 12 and the user's computer 16 may be provided over anysuitable communications network or link 14. Alternatively,communications between the main computer 12 and the user's computer 16may be via any known or future data broadcasting system 17. The maincomputer 12 may also be in communication with a user's alphanumericpager or cellular or other telephone 18, for providing personalizedweather reports to the user thereby, as will be discussed in more detailbelow.

Preferably, and conveniently, the main computer system 12 and the user'scomputer 16 may communicate with each other via the internet 14, usingconventional and widely known internet communications formats,protocols, etc. The main computer system 12 and user's computer 16 maybe connected to the internet 14 in a conventional manner via servers 19and 20, respectively. Note that the server 19 providing an internetconnection for the main computer system 12 may be separate from or anintegral part of the main computer system 12. The server 20 providing aninternet connection for the user computer 16 may typically be providedby a commercial internet service provider. Communications between theuser's computer 16 and the internet service provider's server 20 maytypically be accomplished using a modem connection for communicationover conventional telephone lines, cable television lines, or otherphysical or radio links 22. It should be understood that the centralcomputer system 12 may provide personalized weather reports to many usercomputers 16 connected to the main computer system 12 over the internet14. For example, a single internet service provider's server 20 mayprovide a connection to the central computer 12 over the internet 14 formany user computers 16, and an essentially unlimited number of servers20 may be on the internet 14.

As mentioned above, the main computer system 12 may be implemented in aconventional manner using a single computer or multiple computersnetworked together to perform the functions required. The main computersystem 12 may include conventional computer peripheral devices (notshown), including input and output devices such as keyboards, mouses,monitors, printers, etc. The main computer system 12 will also includeconventional computer memory devices, including disk or tape storagedevices for storing the computer programs which will be run on the maincomputer system 12 to implement a method for providing personalizedweather reports and the like in accordance with the present invention.Memory, e.g., disk storage space, etc., is also provided for the storageof databases of information which is employed by the programs running onthe main computer system 12 for generating personalized weather reportsand the like. Such databases include a geographic location database 24,a user profile database 26, and a weather forecast database 28. The useof each of these databases 24, 26, and 28 in generating a personalizedweather report in accordance with the present invention will bedescribed in detail below. It should be noted that information in eachdatabase 24, 26, and 28 may be stored in its own memory device, e.g.,disk, or together on the same disk or other memory device. Memorycapacity 29 is preferably also provided for storing personalized weatherreports generated by the computer 12 in the form of personalized userinternet web pages, as will be described in more detail below.

In accordance with the present invention, the main computer system 12 isprogrammed, using conventional programming techniques, to performvarious functions to provide personalized weather reports to users. Suchfunctions to be performed by the main computer 12 include a weatherforecast model data generator function, a user profile generatorfunction, and a personalized report generator function. Each of thesefunctions will be described in more detail below.

Any conventional commercially available weather forecasting model may beemployed in the main computer system 12 to implement the weatherforecast model data generator function. Such models typically generatemodeled weather forecast data based on atmospheric conditioninitialization data. Preferably, the weather forecasting model employedis capable of providing highly detailed and accurate weather forecastsof various weather parameters of interest, e.g., temperature, skyconditions, winds, precipitation, etc., with a high degree of bothgeographical and temporal resolution. An example of such a preferredweather forecasting model is the ADONIS model, available from WeatherCentral, Inc., of Madison, Wisconsin. As discussed above, thisnon-hydrostatic model is capable of providing accurate and detailedforecast weather parameters for geographical areas a few miles across athalf-hour increments for at least 120 half-hour periods into the future.(The degree of geographic and temporal resolution is user adjustable,and may be provided over longer or shorter time periods.) Based oncalculated forecast weather parameters for discrete closely spacedpoints in a geographic area, the model automatically and accuratelyextrapolates forecast weather conditions for any lat./lon. coordinatewithin the modeled area.

As discussed above, detailed and accurate weather forecasting modelsrequire powerful and expensive computer resources and significantprocessing time to provide high geographic and temporal resolutionweather forecast data. For a single conventional computer system, at asingle location, to provide such data for the entire country would takea prohibitively long period of time. The problem of computationresources and run times is exacerbated when one considers the need alsoto automatically generate personalized weather reports from modeledforecast data, and to deliver such reports to users throughout thecountry. However, such high resolution forecast data is required toprovide the accurate personalized weather reports for particularlocations (residences or places of work) of interest which usersrequire. In accordance with the present invention, a single computersystem 12 need not model such detailed and high resolution forecast datafor the entire country. Rather, the computer system 12 need only providehigh resolution forecast data (and generate and deliver personalizedweather reports based thereon) for a wide, but limited, geographic areaserved by, e.g., a television or radio station or newspaper. Forexample, the weather forecasting model run on the television or radiostation's main computer system 12 may provide detailed and highresolution weather forecast data only for the geographical viewing orlistening area served by the station. Thus, the television or radiostation can provide personalized weather reports to viewers or listenersin its service area without the need for unreasonable computer resourcesor computation times.

With advances in computer technology, it may be possible in the futureto employ a single computer system for high resolution weather forecastmodeling and personalized weather report generation for a widegeographic area, such as the entire United States, at a reasonable costand computing time. Alternatively, current systems may be employed tomodel weather conditions with less temporal and geographic resolution,but over a wider geographic area, at a reasonable cost and computingtime. A preferred alternative is to employ the computer system 12 to runa high resolution weather forecast model for a limited geographic area,such as a local television or radio station's viewing/listening area, asdiscussed above, and a less high resolution model for a wider areaoutside of the limited geographic area. The vast majority of usersobtaining personalized weather reports from the local system 10 will beinterested in receiving such reports for locations within the limitedlocal geographic area, and will, therefore, receive detailed reportsbased on the high resolution model data. Those who live and work withinthe limited geographic area, but who are interested in obtainingpersonalized weather forecasts for locations outside of the limitedgeographic area (e.g., for a vacation home location), may be provided apersonalized weather report for such a location, but based on lowerresolution model data. Thus, personalized weather reports may beprovided from a single local computer system 12 for locations over awide geographic area of interest, with most users, whose locations ofinterest lie in a more limited geographic area, being providedpersonalized weather reports for such locations based on high geographicand temporal resolution model data. This result can be obtained usingconventional computer systems of reasonable cost and reasonablecomputation times.

An exemplary weather forecasting model which may be employed by atelevision or radio station to generate detailed and high resolutionweather forecast data for the particular geographical area served by thestation is the commercially available ADONIS Microcast weather forecastmodeling product available from Weather Central, Inc., of Madison, Wis.This product is capable of providing the same high geographic andtemporal resolution weather forecast data produced by ADONIS, asdescribed above, for a wide, but limited geographical area usingreasonable computation resources and computation times. This modelemploys initial atmospheric condition data 30 which is computed at acentral location from “raw” observational data provided by the NationalWeather Service and other agencies. The initialization data 30 isprovided periodically, e.g., twice a day, from the central location tothe main computer system 12. The initial conditions 30 may be providedto the main computer system 12 running the weather forecasting model viaa direct communication link 32 (e.g., a satellite link) or,alternatively, via the internet 14, via a server 34, in either caseusing conventional data transfer protocols.

The detailed high resolution weather forecast model data generated bythe forecasting model employed in the computer system 12 may be subjectto constraints, provided via a constrainer module 36, before such modeldata is employed to generate a personalized weather report in accordancewith the present invention. The constraints 36 may be provided to thecomputer system in a variety of ways. For example, constraints 36 may beprovided to the computer system 12 directly, such as by a meteorologistor other operator entering such constraints directly into the computersystem 12 via a keyboard or other input device associated therewith.Alternatively, or additionally, constraints 36 may be provided to thecomputer system 12 from a remote location, e.g., via a directcommunications link (e.g., a satellite link) or via the internet 14 oranother communications network. Constraints 36 may be applied to anymodeled weather condition, e.g., temperature, wind speed, precipitation,etc., and may be applied throughout an entire modeled geographic area,or to selected portions thereof. The constraints 36 limit the modeledweather conditions which are used to generate personalized weatherreports in accordance with the present invention to enhance the accuracyof such reports. For example, a meteorologist may determine, based onexperience and/or information which is not available to the modelemployed, that, for example, the high temperature or precipitation for amodeled region and time will not exceed certain levels. Such limits maybe provided to the computer system 12 as constraints 36, to ensure thatno personalized weather report for locations within such regionforecasts predicted temperatures or precipitation exceeding theconstrained levels.

An exemplary method, employing the system 10 described with reference toFIG. 1, for providing personalized weather reports and the like to auser will now be described in detail with reference to the exemplaryflowchart diagram of FIG. 2. The process of providing a personalizedweather report to a user begins with the establishment of a user profile40. The user profile may be established by each user himself. Forexample, a user may establish a user profile by connecting with the maincomputer system 12 over, e.g., the internet 14. The user profilegenerator function, running on the main computer system 12, maypreferably provide a user profile set-up menu user interface as a webpage which may be accessed by the user over the internet. An exemplary,and very simplified, user profile set-up menu user interface isillustrated at 42 in FIG. 3. The user profile set-up menu user interface42 prompts a user to provide a name 44, contact address 46, and locationidentification 48. (The user profile set-up menu user interface 42 mayalso prompt the user to provide other information, e.g., billing, e.g.,credit card, information for billing the cost of personalized weatherreports to the user, in a conventional manner. The page on which theuser profile set-up menu user interface 42 is provided may also includeadvertisements and hypertext links to other web pages or sites on theinternet, in a conventional manner.)

The contact address 46 is the address to which the user would like hispersonalized weather reports to be sent. This may be, for example, aninternet e-mail address, for providing the personalized reports to theuser's computer 16 over the internet 14, or may identify anotherdestination or medium for transmitting the reports to a user. Forexample, personalized weather reports may be provided by the maincomputer system 12 to a user's alphanumeric pager or cellular phone 18(e.g., using a conventional voice synthesizer) (see FIG. 1), in whichcase the contact address may be a cell phone or pager number.Alternatively, or additionally, the computer system 12 may automaticallygenerate a personalized internet web page address, at which the user'spersonalized weather report will be accessible, from the informationprovided by the user via the user profile set-up menu user interface 42.The user's personalized internet web page address may be provided to theuser at the user's contact address 46. For example, the user'spersonalized internet web page address may be provided in an e-mail orphone message provided to the user at the user's contact address 46.

The location 48 is the geographical location for which the user isinterested in receiving a detailed weather report. For example, thelocation may be the user's home or work location, or the location ofbusiness activity, such as a construction site. Various methods may beused for identifying the desired location. For example, the user mayprovide a street address or a United States Postal Service zip+4 code,either of which will identify the location of interest with sufficientdetail. Since the weather forecast model run on the main computer system12 will typically produce weather forecast data for geographic locationsidentified by lat./lon. coordinates, it will typically be necessary toconvert the location 48 entered by the user in the user profile set-upmenu user interface 42 into a lat./lon. coordinate. For this purpose,the main computer system 12 may employ a geographic location database24, which may include a table or other data structure for convertingstreet addresses, zip+4 codes, etc. to corresponding lat./lon.coordinates.

Preferably, a user may also be prompted to identify outdoor or otheractivities in which the user is interested and for which the user wouldlike advance notice of favorable (or unfavorable) weather conditions. Anexemplary user activity weather condition profile set-up menu, which maybe generated by the user profile generator, is illustrated at 50 in FIG.4. The user may be provided with a predefined list 51 of typical outdooractivities from which to select. Having selected one or more activitiesfrom the activity list 51, the user is prompted to provide a label 52describing the particular activity/event of interest. The user is thenprompted to select a desired location 53 or locations for performing theactivity. The menu 50 may prompt a user to select a location from aselection of locations previously stored in the system, such as a golfcourse or courses at which the user is interested in playing, or mayrequire the user specifically to identify the activity location ofinterest, e.g., by postal code or latitude and longitude, as describedabove. The geographical location database 24 preferably includeslat./lon. coordinates for activity locations, e.g., golf courses, lakesfor fishing, beaches for wind surfing, etc., which may be selected by auser, such that the main computer system 12 may convert such locationsto lat./lon. coordinates, as discussed above. The user may be promptedto select desired days and times 54 for the activities of interest.Finally, the user is prompted to select weather conditions (e.g.,temperatures, sky conditions, humidity, precipitation, wind speed andwind direction) of interest for such activities, and ideal ranges forsuch conditions. If a weather condition is selected as being ofinterest, e.g., by selecting a check box 55 next to the condition in themenu 50, the ranges 56 identified for that condition will be consideredin determining if a user weather condition activity profile has beensatisfied. (Unselected conditions are always considered satisfied.) Ofcourse, the user may be prompted to provide different or otherconditions than those illustrated by example in FIG. 4. The profileweather conditions which a user may be prompted to select may depend onthe activity of interest for which a weather condition profile is to begenerated. The activity weather condition profile user interface mayprovide default values for some or all of the conditions, based on,e.g., weather conditions for the activity which are preferred by most ortypical participants in the activity, while providing an individual userthe opportunity to override the default condition values to establishhis or her own preferred weather condition profile. For activities forwhich a user desires to receive advance notice of favorable (orunfavorable) conditions, but which are not listed in the predefinedselected activities list 51, the user may describe another activity 57and select a location 53, time 54, and ranges 56 of selected conditions55 for conditions modeled by the weather forecast model to establish apersonalized activity weather condition profile. Such other activitiesmay include business activities, allowing a user to define a profile ofdesired business conditions, for example, for pouring concrete orerecting a crane at a designated construction location. The useractivity weather condition profile set-up menu 50 preferably alsoprovides a user interface 58 which allows a user to activate a profilewhich has been defined using the set-up menu 50, to delete a profile, orto reset the information entered into the menu 50 to default values.

Having established a user profile, using the user profile set-up 42 andrelated user interface menus, the user profile is saved 62 by the maincomputer system 12, e.g., in a user profile database 26. Of course, manyindividual user profiles may be established by individual users andsaved by the main computer system 12 in the user profile database 26. Auser is preferably able to change any user definable portion of his userprofile at any time by re-accessing the user interface menus 42 and 50,e.g., over the internet connection 14, and making any desired changes.For security purposes, a user may be requested to establish a userpassword upon initially establishing a user profile, and may be promptedto enter this password before being allowed to make any changes to apreviously established user profile.

Periodically, e.g., twice a day, the main computer system 12 runs 64 theweather forecasting model, as described above, to provide detailedaccurate high resolution weather forecast data. As discussed above,depending upon the model employed, the weather forecast model mayrequire initial conditions 30 to be provided thereto 63. For example,initial conditions may be provided to the computer system 12, e.g.,twice a day, from a remote central location, and the weather forecastmodel run 64 each time the initial conditions are provided. Theresulting detailed high resolution weather forecast model data is savedby the main computer system 12 into a forecast database 28 at 66. Asdiscussed above, the detailed weather forecast data includes detailedweather condition information, e.g., temperatures, sky conditions,winds, precipitation, etc., for specific geographic locations(preferably no more than a few miles apart) and with a high degree oftemporal resolution (e.g., for half-hour increments) extending up toseveral days into the future. If any constraints 36 on the forecastmodel data have been previously provided to the computer system 12, suchconstraints are preferably applied at 67 to the model forecast data 64before the forecast data is saved 66. Thus, constrained modeled forecastdata is saved 66 and employed to generate personalized weather reportsin accordance with the present invention.

The saved weather forecast data from the forecast database 28 iscombined by the personalized report generator function in main computersystem 12 with the user profile data in the user profile database 26 at68 to generate a personalized weather report for each user who hasestablished a user profile. The step 68 of generating a personalizedweather report may be performed automatically, for example, each timethe weather forecast model is run to generate weather forecast data. Ifboth high resolution (for a limited geographic area) and lowerresolution (for a wider geographic area) weather forecast model data isobtained, the high resolution data is employed to generate personalizedweather reports for locations within the limited geographic area, andthe lower resolution data is employed to generate personalized weatherreports for other locations. For example, as part of the process 66 ofgenerating personalized weather reports, it may be determined if eachuser location of interest is located within the limited geographic areafor which high resolution weather forecast model data was obtained. Iflocation of interest is within the limited area, the high resolutiondata is used to generate a personalized weather report for the location,otherwise the lower resolution data is used. The personalized weatherreport is then provided at 70 to the user. The personalized weatherreport may be delivered to the user at the contact address 46 providedby the user in the user profile set-up menu user interface 42. Forexample, the computer system 12 may include a personalized weatherreport generator which generates a personalized weather report in theform of a text e-mail message which is sent to the user periodically,e.g., twice a day.

An exemplary personalized weather report e-mail message 72, which may begenerated and delivered to a user in this manner, is shown in FIG. 5.Note that a personalized weather report e-mail message provided inaccordance with the present invention may provide additional ordifferent information, and may have a different format than the message72 shown by example in FIG. 5. (Additionally, the personalized weatherreport e-mail message may include advertisements and hypertext links toweb sites in a conventional manner.) The personalized weather reporte-mail message 72 may be generated from a report form template.Individual condition values, e.g., temperatures, precipitation, times ofoccurrences, etc., are extracted by the personalized report generatorfunction from the modeled forecast data and inserted into the properposition in the template to generate the personalized weather report 72.For example, a sentence template 74 may be provided for reportingforecast rain conditions in the personalized report message 72. If themodeled forecast data indicates rain for the selected user location, thesentence template 74 is added to the message 72, with details on whenthe rain will start 76 and end 78 and how much rain will be received 80at the location extracted from the weather model forecast data andinserted into the sentence template. (For very widely scattered“on-and-off” precipitation conditions, the user may be presented with apercentage likelihood of precipitation between specified times.) Othersentence templates may be employed in a similar manner for other weatherconditions.

As discussed above, a personalized weather report in accordance with thepresent invention may be provided in other than a text format to acontact address other than a computer. For example, the personalizedreport may be provided as an oral report to a user's computer ortelephone, using conventional voice synthesization technology. Inaddition to text, the personalized report may include still or animatedgraphics of weather conditions at the selected location. Such graphicsmay be generated in a conventional manner from the available weatherforecast model data, and may be delivered as part of the personalizedweather report or accessed from the weather report, e.g., by ahyperlink.

Alternatively, or additionally, a personalized weather report inaccordance with the present invention may be provided as a personalizedinternet web page, which is accessible by a user at the user'spersonalized internet web page address. An exemplary personalizedinternet web page weather report is illustrated at 82 in FIG. 6. Notethat a personalized internet web page weather report in accordance withthe present invention may provide additional or different information,and may have a different format than, the web page 82 shown by examplein FIG. 6. The personalized internet web page weather report 82 mayinclude summaries 84 of weather conditions at the user location ofinterest over a forecast period, e.g., several days. The personalizedinternet web page weather report 82 preferably also includes a moredetailed high resolution weather forecast 86 for the user location. Asdiscussed above, the weather condition information for the highresolution weather forecast 86 may be extracted automatically from thehigh resolution weather model forecast data. The high resolution weatherforecast 86 preferably provides detailed weather condition informationfor the user's location of interest for several time periods (e.g., eachhour) throughout a day, in an easily readable form. For example, asillustrated in FIG. 6, the high resolution weather forecast 86 may bepresented in an easily readable tabular form, with weather conditions(e.g., temperature, dew point, sky conditions, precipitation, windspeed, wind direction, humidity, etc.) for each time period (e.g., hour)through the day presented in textual or graphical form in a table.Notable weather condition events, such as daily high 88 and low 90temperatures, may be highlighted within the table. For example, thedaily high 88 and low 90 temperatures may be highlighted in bold textand/or different colors (e.g., red for daily highs, blue for dailylows), to bring the time of occurrence of such conditions to a user'sattention.

A personalized weather report in accordance with the present inventionmay be provided to a user in more than one format. For example, a usermay be provided with a summary personalized weather report e-mailmessage, delivered to the user contact e-mail address, as well as apersonalized internet web page weather report, which is accessible by auser at the user's personalized internet web page address. An exemplarysummary personalized weather report e-mail message is shown at 92 inFIG. 7. The summary personalized weather report e-mail message 92provides a brief summary of forecast weather conditions for the user'slocation of interest. Such a summary weather report may be automaticallygenerated by the personalized report generator function of the systemcomputer 12, and delivered to the user's e-mail contact address, e.g.,each time the weather forecast model is run (e.g., twice each day). Thesummary weather report provided in the summary personalized weatherreport e-mail message 92 may be derived by the system computer 12 fromthe weather model forecast data. A more detailed high resolutionpersonalized weather forecast report may be made available to the userat the personalized internet web page accessible by the user at theuser's personalized internet web page address. A link 94 to the user'spersonalized internet web page report may be provided as part of thesummary personalized e-mail message weather report 92. The summarypersonalized e-mail message weather report 92 thus serves the multiplefunctions of notifying a user that an updated personalized weatherforecast report is available, providing a brief summary of thatpersonalized weather report to a user, and providing an easy link to themore detailed personalized internet web page weather report. It shouldbe noted that personalized weather report data in accordance with thepresent invention may also, or alternatively, be provided over theinternet to a user having a program (a bug) running on the user'scomputer 16 which can continually display the weather report andautomatically update the report displayed each time new report data isgenerated.

A personalized weather report in accordance with the present inventionprovides a detailed weather forecast for the location identified by theuser in the user profile set-up menu, not merely a general forecast fora large geographic region which may incorporate that location. If theweather forecast model has not generated a set of forecast conditionsfor the exact lat./lon. corresponding to the location identified by theuser, the computer system 12 may extrapolate conditions for the locationfrom modeled conditions for nearly adjacent locations. Since the weatherforecast model preferably provides high resolution forecast data forlocations separated by no more than a few miles, such an extrapolationprocess should provide an accurate indication of forecast weatherconditions at the location of interest to the user.

If a user has established a weather condition profile for one or moreactivities, such profiles may be compared to the saved forecast data bythe personalized weather report generator as part of the step ofgenerating a personalized weather report. If forecast conditions for theindicated activity location satisfy the established profile, apersonalized report, e.g., an e-mail message, which may be included aspart of or separate from the personalized weather report e-mail message72, is sent to the user to provide advanced notice to the user of whenand where the favorable conditions are to occur. An exemplarypersonalized e-mail message of this type, indicating, in this case, thatforecast conditions do not satisfy the weather condition profileestablished by the user for an activity of interest, is shown at 96 inFIG. 8. Note that such an e-mail message 96 may preferably include alink 98 to the user's personalized internet web page weather report 82,where more detail may be obtained, as discussed above. Note also thatpersonal activity weather condition profiles established by a user maybe accessed by the user via the user's personalized internet web pageweather report 82, and new personal activity weather condition profilesestablished, via a user interface 99 provided on the user's personalizedinternet web page 82. (See FIG. 6)

In addition to providing advanced weather forecast information, thepersonalized weather report may provide current weather conditioninformation, severe weather warning reports, and other information forthe indicated location to a user at the user's contact address. Suchreports and warnings may be generated automatically based, e.g., oncurrent weather condition information, provided, e.g., by local and/orremote weather radar systems 82, which is provided to the main computersystem 12 (see FIG. 1). Other information, such as traffic information,may also be provided automatically as part of the personalized reportbased, e.g., on traffic information 84 provided to the main computersystem 12.

It should be understood that the present invention is not limited to theparticular embodiments and examples illustrated and described herein,but embraces all such modified forms thereof as come within the scope ofthe following claims. For example, even though it is preferred thatpersonalized weather reports in accordance with the present invention begenerated by computers located at local radio or television stations,etc., for their local region of interest, based on locally generatedmodel data and initialization conditions only provided from a centrallocation, a central system may be used to provide detailed personalizedweather reports for users throughout the country if sufficient computerresources are available at a central site.

1. A method for generating a personalized weather report, comprising thesteps of: (a) establishing a user profile including a user definedlocation of interest; (b) providing a personalized internet web pageaddress to a user; (c) generating forecast weather condition data for anarea including the location of interest; (d) generating a personalizedweather forecast and weather report of forecast weather conditions atthe location of interest automatically from the user profile and theforecast weather condition data; and (e) providing the weather report soas to be accessible at the personalized Internet web page address. 2.The method of claim 1 wherein the step of establishing a user profileincludes the step of providing a user profile set-up menu userinterface.
 3. The method of claim 1 wherein the step of establishing auser profile includes the step of establishing a user contact address.4. The method of claim 3 wherein the step of providing the personalizedinternet web page address to a user includes the step of providing thepersonalized internet web page address to the user contact address. 5.The method of claim 4 wherein the user contact address is an e-mailaddress and wherein the step of providing the personalized internet webpage address to a user includes the step of providing the personalizedinternet web page address in an e-mail message provided to the e-mailaddress.
 6. The method of claim 3 comprising additionally the step ofproviding the weather report to the user contact address.
 7. The methodof claim 6 wherein the user contact address is an e-mail address, thestep of generating the weather report includes the step of generating aweather report e-mail message, and the step of providing the weatherreport to the user contact address includes the step of sending theweather report e-mail message to the user contact e-mail address.
 8. Themethod of claim 7 wherein the step of generating the weather reporte-mail message includes the step of providing a link to the personalizedinternet web page address in the weather report e-mail message.
 9. Themethod of claim 7 wherein the step of generating the weather reportincludes the step of generating a summary weather report e-mail messageproviding a less detailed report of forecast weather conditions than thepersonalized weather report of forecast weather conditions provided soas to be accessible at the personalized Internet web page address. 10.The method of claim 1 wherein the step of generating forecast weathercondition data includes the step of running a weather forecast model togenerate weather forecast model data for an area including the locationof interest.
 11. The method of claim 10 wherein the step of generating apersonalized weather forecast of weather conditions includes the step ofextrapolating weather conditions for the location of interest from theweather forecast model data.
 12. A personalized weather reportgenerating system, comprising: (a) user profile generator means forgenerating a user profile including a user defined location of interestand a personalized internet web page address; (b) means for providingthe personalized internet web page address to a user; (c) weatherforecast model data generator means for generating weather forecastmodel data for an area including the location of interest; (d) weatherreport generator means for generating a personalized weather forecastand a weather report of forecast weather conditions at the location ofinterest automatically from the user profile and the weather forecastmodel data and providing the weather report so as to be accessible atthe personalized Internet web page address.
 13. The personalized weatherreport generating system of claim 12 wherein the user profile generatormeans, the weather forecast model data generator means, and the weatherreport generator means are implemented in at least one general purposecomputer.
 14. The personalized weather report generating system of claim12 wherein the user profile generator means includes means forgenerating a user profile set-up menu user interface and for providingthe user profile set-up menu user interface to a user.
 15. Thepersonalized weather report generating system of claim 12 wherein themeans for providing the personalized internet web page address to a userincludes means for providing the personalized internet web page addressto a user contact address.
 16. The personalized weather reportgenerating system of claim 15 wherein the user contact address is ane-mail address and the means for providing the personalized internet webpage address to a user includes means for providing the personalizedinternet web page address in an e-mail message provided to the e-mailaddress.
 17. The personalized weather report generating system of claim12 comprising additionally means for providing the weather report to auser contact address.
 18. The personalized weather report generatingsystem of claim 17 wherein the user contact address is an e-mail addressand the means for providing the weather report to the user contactaddress includes means for generating a weather report e-mail messageand means for providing the weather report e-mail message to the usercontact e-mail address.
 19. The personalized weather report generatingsystem of claim 18 wherein the means for generating the weather reporte-mail message includes means for providing a link to the personalizedinternet web page address in the weather report e-mail message.
 20. Thepersonalized weather report generating system of claim 18 wherein theweather report generator means includes means for generating a summaryweather report e-mail message providing a less detailed report offorecast weather conditions than the personalized weather report offorecast weather conditions provided so as to be accessible at thepersonalized Internet web page address.
 21. A method of generating apersonalized weather report, comprising the steps of: (a) establishing auser profile including a user defined location of interest; (b)generating forecast weather condition data for an area including thelocation of interest; and (c) generating a personalized weather forecastand weather report of forecast weather conditions at the location ofinterest automatically from the user profile and the forecast weathercondition data, wherein the weather report of forecast weatherconditions includes a tabular representation of a plurality of forecastweather conditions including forecast temperature conditions for atleast each hour throughout a day, and wherein a daily forecast hightemperature condition and a daily forecast low temperature condition inthe tabular representation of forecast weather conditions ishighlighted.
 22. The method of claim 21 wherein the step of generating apersonalized weather forecast and weather report of forecast weatherconditions includes the step of generating a tabular representation of aplurality of forecast weather conditions for at least each hourthroughout a day, and wherein selected ones of the plurality of forecastweather conditions are presented in graphical form in the tabularrepresentation.
 23. The method of claim 21 wherein the daily forecasthigh temperature condition and daily forecast low temperature conditionin the tabular representation of forecast weather conditions ishighlighted by color.
 24. The method of claim 21 wherein the dailyforecast high temperature condition and daily forecast low temperaturecondition in the tabular representation of forecast weather conditionsis highlighted by size.
 25. The method of claim 21 comprisingadditionally the step of providing the weather report to a user.
 26. Themethod of claim 25 comprising additionally the step of providing apersonalized internet web page address to a user and wherein the step ofproviding the weather report to the user includes the step of providingthe weather report so as to be accessible at the personalized internetweb page address.
 27. The method of claim 21 wherein the step ofgenerating a forecast of weather condition data includes the step ofrunning a weather forecast model to generate weather forecast model datafor an area including the location of interest.
 28. A personalizedweather report generating system, comprising: (a) user profile generatormeans for generating a user profile including a user defined location ofinterest; (b) a weather forecast model data generator means forgenerating weather forecast model data for an area including the area ofinterest; and (c) a weather report generator means for generating apersonalized weather forecast and weather report of forecast weatherconditions at the location of interest automatically from the userprofile and the weather forecast model data, wherein the weather reportof forecast weather conditions includes a tabular representation of aplurality of forecast weather conditions including forecast temperatureconditions for at least each hour throughout a day, and wherein a dailyforecast high temperature condition and a daily forecast low temperaturecondition in the tabular representation of forecast weather conditionsis highlighted.
 29. The personalized weather report generating system ofclaim 28 wherein the user profile generator means, the weather forecastmodel data generator means, and the weather report generator means areimplemented in at least one general purpose computer.
 30. Thepersonalized weather report generating system of claim 28 wherein theweather report generator means for generating a personalized weatherforecast and weather report of forecast weather conditions includesmeans for generating a tabular representation of a plurality of forecastweather conditions for at least each hour throughout a day, and whereinselected ones of the plurality of forecast weather conditions arepresented in graphical form in the tabular representation.
 31. Thepersonalized weather report generating system of claim 28 wherein thedaily forecast high temperature condition and the daily forecast lowtemperature condition in the tabular representation of forecast weatherconditions is highlighted by color.
 32. The personalized weather reportgenerating system of claim 28 wherein the daily forecast hightemperature condition and the daily forecast low temperature conditionin the tabular representation of forecast weather conditions ishighlighted by size.
 33. The personalized weather report generatingsystem of claim 28 comprising additionally means for providing theweather report to a user.
 34. The personalized weather report generatingsystem of claim 33 comprising additionally means for providing apersonalized internet web page address to a user and wherein the meansfor providing the weather report to the user includes means forproviding the weather report so as to be accessible at the personalizedinternet web page address.